The excavation of earth, including soil, rock, and other matter, is a task common to numerous enterprises, particularly farming. In farming operations, it is often necessary to grade the land, remove soil from raised areas, and fill in soil in lower areas. Various equipment have been employed to achieve these ends.
Backhoes and other similar vehicles, for example, have an extendible arm adapted for attachment to a bucket. The backhoe with the attached bucket can be used to excavate soil from a first location. The backhoe can then be moved to a second location where the soil can be dumped. The size of the bucket in such backhoes and similar vehicles, and therefore the amount of soil that can be worked at one time, is generally small relative to the overall size of the vehicle. This is because the entire weight of the arm, bucket, and soil is born by the vehicle.
Previous equipment were deficient in that they were not designed to remove a relatively small depth of soil (e.g., a few inches) from a relatively large area. They were not designed for grading. Rather, such equipment were principally designed for removing a quantity of soil, roughly equivalent to the capacity of the bucket, from a small area. Similarly, previous equipment have not been designed to evenly distribute the accumulated soil over a relatively large area such that the maximum increase in soil depth in any one location is controlled. There is a need therefore for an efficient farming implement capable of removing a relatively small depth of soil from a relatively large area and transporting the accumulated soil to a second area where the soil can be either dumped or spread out.